Opening Lines

I’M just back from Copenhagen. You could tell something had changed there.

There was an almost palpable sense of exhalation, of relief. Copenhageners were walking around — actually, mainly cycling — with a lighter step (or bicycle frame) than before. When questioned about their good humour, they all replied with one voice: “The war is over.”

Specifically the Second Anglo Dutch War in 1666. Like a younger brother dragged along to the park to watch his older brother drink cans and smoke, England was at war with Denmark, so Ireland had to be too and our list of laws show we declared hostilities against the Danes in 1666. We found this out last week because the Government released a list of more than 4,000 old laws that may need to be done away with.

It’s the legislative equivalent of clearing out the attic in that it doesn’t take long before we are sitting cross-legged on the floor saying “I didn’t even know we had that!”

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is even asking us our opinion on whether any of them should be retained — which seems like a great example of people’s democracy at work.

Of course, we probably wouldn’t be consulted on anything that really mattered like collecting PPSNs for water charges or appointing cronies to boards of modern art museums for six days — but, I suppose, baby steps....

The full list of the laws are on the internet at www. per.gov.ie/slrp. You should read them. Like the 1901/1911 census data, they are another example of learning about history in a way that seems a million miles away from the textbooks that were digested like muesli in school.

The laws act like little clues and if you are curious, it will lead you to ask questions.

Why, for example, were we at war with Denmark? It was because the Netherlands paid them to declare war on England. The Anglo-Dutch war was about who controlled shipping and spices.

The resolution to that war meant the English kept Manhattan and the Dutch got the nutmeg islands. So think about that the next time Rachel Allen adds a pinch of the stuff to her cakes.

And for those of you who think that Dublin is ‘like the Wild West, shur’, ‘gone to the dogs’ or ‘ohstopdontbetalkingtome, GOUGERS’, it’s just as well you weren’t around in the 18th century.

There are about 30 laws fulminating against rioting there alone. And these weren’t the kind of Love Ulster riots where people stole a few pairs of Lacoste runners in order to strike a blow against the forces of Unionism. These were organised gangs of more than a thousand people fighting each other for days on end. Cork had riots too but they were mainly about food. (As in, the lack of it.

It wasn’t a load of Cork diners complaining that the spuds weren’t floury enough.)

There are laws against profanity, debauchery, being offensive, and ‘rescuing brandy’ from the customs and excise.

Half the population appear to have been outlaws, woodkerns, tories, rapparees, White Boys (agrarian guerrillas, not people who played that funky music) or just wanted in general. And the cows, the poor cows — about 12 laws related to when the dispossessed Irish got their revenge by (houghing) snipping the hamstrings of occupiers’ cattle.

So when anyone talks about the good old days, ask them to be specific.